Twenty Billion Seconds
by midnightneverland
Summary: Seeing Max's life packed into boxes scattered throughout the room stops Warren's heart as if it's been clenched into his fist. There's too much finality in seeing her clothes, posters, and papers packed neatly into boxes and shoved aside. This is real and in one day, she will be sleeping in another state, far out of his reach.
1. Chapter 1

Seeing Max's life packed into boxes scattered throughout the room stops Warren's heart as if it's been clenched into his fist. There's too much finality in seeing her clothes, posters, and papers packed neatly into boxes and shoved aside. This is real and in one day, she will be sleeping in another state, far out of his reach. What happens if she has a nightmare? If she wakes up and can't remember what day it is? If she breaks down crying and he's not there? It's ridiculous and he knows it. Her parents are far better support than he could be and she's the strongest person he knows. She doesn't need him. But it doesn't make him feel any better about it.

He helps her tape boxes, focusing far too much on how straight the tape is, which way the flaps are folded. It's only when the tape bunches together and he's somehow got the sleeve of his shirt tangled in it, that he realizes he's crying. He's an idiot, he's _such_ an idiot, but he clears his throat and pulls himself together before she turns to face him, her eyebrows scrunched in worry.

"I'm going to visit every weekend," he promises, and he hates how raspy his voice sounds. "We'll have road trips and I'll even go retro and write you letters. It'll be like an adventure."

"Every weekend is stretching it, isn't it?" she asks and he can't help but smile because he'd been holding this in for so long. He has no idea where he and Max will end up, if she'll be fed up with him by next autumn. But he'll be in Seattle either way and he'll let her take what she could from that.

"I got into University of Washington. Full ride. So it'll be like I'm down the street."

Her reaction is so sudden that it catches him off guard. She squeals and launches herself upon him and he stumbles over a box and takes her down with him. Her laughter is warm against his face and he can feel it flush against his skin. Over twenty billion seconds have passed since he's heard this laugh, a laugh as light as the sheet of paper he's knocked into the air. He can't help but to grasp her chin and pull her face even closer. "Hey," he whispers, "you are the most amazing and bravest person I know." Later, when he will backtrack this moment, when he will cringe and slap himself for being so corny, he will remember her own blush settled against her cheeks, the way she sucks at her bottom lip to hold herself together. It's exactly the words she needs to hear and before she can thank him, his lips are against hers.

He can feel her gasp of surprise and then she relaxes into him, her hands soft against the back of his neck, her heart thudding rapidly beside his.

He's completely lost, he knows this, but he wouldn't have it any other way.


	2. Chapter 2

Warren lives two lives, two separate selves that tug and pull at each other until he can't find middle ground. Arcadia Bay's not the same without Max, that much is given. He spends his days at home, lost in his movies and scrolling through the internet until his head throbs. He throws his blanket over his head and counts the pieces of lint caught in the fabric. It's completely and utterly boring.

He doesn't visit Max every weekend, because it's not the easiest of drives, but that will change as soon as he moves into his new dorm.

The weekends he does spend in Seattle, he drives with the windows down and the summer air warm across his face. He shouts to the radio till his throat is sore and he's shouting now when he pulls up to Max's house, with little abandon to the neighbors. Max is already outside, sitting in her favorite tree, waiting for him. She smiles and winces at his singing, but she runs up to him all the same, practically pulling him out of the window. He catches her in his arms and tries to twirl her, but they trip over each other and tumble to the ground instead. She laughs, even as he kisses her, with grass and twigs stabbing him in the most uncomfortable of places. He doesn't care though. This is where he feels alive, with the rumble of her laugh against his lips and his ankle twisted painfully beneath him.

They drive wherever the roads take them. They hunt down abandoned buildings for Max to shoot photos of. He loves to watch her get lost in them, the determination that flickers across her eyes like candlelight.

"I see myself in them," she tells him with a small embarrassed laugh, "I know it's weird, but it's like I can see myself in the cracks and rubble, like I'm rebuilding myself." She casts her eyes down, and continues, "I see Chloe, too. She would have loved this. It's almost like she was already here."

He lays his hand against the faded brick wall, the coldness of a past long abandoned but still thrumming with its story. He can still feel it. He can still see it.

"My mom's mad that you didn't try any of the cheesecake she made," Max says as they wind down another unfamiliar road. She has her hand out the open window, twirling it around in the summer breeze.

"Aw, man, I love cheesecake," he says and she rolls her eyes. He reaches over to pinch her cheek and she smacks his hand away.

"Yeah, that's why she made it. She was up till one in the morning making it. Completely ridiculous. I wasn't going to sit there and watch you eat three slices of cheesecake though. I mean, I have my limits."

He scoffs because he wants to tell her he wouldn't eat three slices, but he probably would. He's fallen in love with her mom's cooking and they all know it. He jokes that good food is hard to find, but there's a sense of comfort in being around her family that he doesn't get at home. His parents measure his worth by his GPA, fold away his A minuses with thin lips and silence.

"She's so in love with you. I'm actually waiting for her to propose to you."

"Well, that saves me from having to do it." The joke is out of his mouth before he can stop it and she immediately tenses, her face a sheet of white before him. _Shit._ "If the time ever came, I mean," he tries to backtrack, but it's too late. He knows she hates talking about the future and anything further than a week has her looking for a window to climb out of. She's as restless as the change of the wind and he loves her for it, but it frightens him as well. There are so few things that tether her to the ground, he's afraid that one day the strings will fray and she will float away.

He pulls over, taking her face in his hand and kisses away the hesitation that lines her face, dips into the creases of her lips. "I'm happy with whatever this is," he insists, which is probably for the hundredth time, but it eases the tension in her shoulders, dulls the sharpness in her eyes. "If we get married, if we don't, if we're still cruising down this road five weeks or five years from now, as long as you're happy, then I'll take it."

And she leans into him, taking his words, taking his kiss, and it's enough. He's happy with that, as well.


End file.
